Jiggyboo

When buying a product, one needs to consider not only the out-of-pocket cost to acquire said product. But also the cost of maintaining the product. And any fee’s that might be applicable to keep the product service running.

In the case of my tint. Its the cost of the tickets I receive.

Lets go ahead and tally my cost-to-date.

February 26th 2005 - Purchased tint and had it installed for $175.
April 10th, 2006 - Received a ticket* traveling from California to Arizona; cost $130.
May 22nd, 2007 - Received a ticket on I-60 traveling home from work; cost $105.

Total cost of ownership = $410

This is really too bad. I am going to keep my tint. But these tickets are fairly annoying. Its pointless to argue, because I do appreciate the option of paying and keeping my tint. But it just feels like a racket. They let me keep the tint as long as I pay a fee. I say this because the cop was filtering on-ramp traffic during rush hour. Which means next week he may just filter again, and being that he already pulled me over a second time (see here), i’m pretty sure the douche would give me another ticket. Lame.

Highway Patrol cops are douche-bags. Both tickets were from highway patrolmen. Though one was a woman, she was dyke enough to qualify for manism.

* - I did not create a blog for this incident. This is the closest i can guess based off of an email I found. And actually, if I had my pictures (my hard drives are currently dead) I could poke around this date and probably locate the pictures I took with my phone that day. I remember taking pics. So perhaps one day i’ll update this.

So i’ve been developing quite the number of banners for ponderplace.com. I enjoy it, its fun coming up with idea’s for it. Thus far I have four completed banners, and one that is giving me some headache. I’ll keep churning these babies out till the sun sets. Actually most of these were created well after sun-set. What I am trying to emphasis is that there will be quite the collection of banners here before too long.

Banner1:

—One simple click to happiness—

This one I created with myspace in mind. Its more of a full on banner advertisement you might expect at the top of a website. I think I want to update the 3rd or 4th silhouette. The one I have in there now just doesn’t flow as well with the ones before and after it.

I have some fine detail in this one that might go unnoticed. On the final stance, you will see a blip in the upper righthand corner. This is a cartoon sound box (unofficial term), with the word “Click!” in it. When this happens, the lampshade is illuminated and the text in ponderplace.com. Though only the “ce” and “co” are illuminated. Its a very subtle effect, but I’m proud of it.

Banner2:

I made this one with the intention of using it whenever I left a comment on someone’s myspace. The idea being that its small enough not to be annoying, yet its catchy enough to … you know … catch.

Banner3:

This is the one giving me crap. I need to redo the photoshoot and change a few things. Otherwise its my most complicated one, as far as getting the pictures right and editing goes.

Banner4:

Attempting to persuade with words.

Banner5:

Again with the words.

In the last four to five years I’ve probably been pulled over six times. Roughly 83% of these events occurred within the last four weeks.

I really thought I’d recorded each incident. But I guess I only recorded the first two in this recent rash of pullovers.

The third pullover is actually really funny/annoying. See, it happened just the following week after these two; and it was by the same cop… for the same thing. Tint.

Man what a hooker. He pulls me over, and even though he seemed nice enough about it all. I’m pretty sure he wanted to ticket me for that. But he couldn’t, as i currently have a pending ticket on my tint.

So May 22nd and 23rd was the start of this fiasco. Ha! Thats funny, tonight, June 22nd was the latest pullover. So in a one month period, I’ve been pulled over four times. Thats once per week (average).

The latest one was the most funny/idiotic.

I live on Dobson Rd. And I’ve never mentioned anything here, but its a suicide street during certain hours. There are no lights for the residents, and the street is lined with apartments/condo’s/townhouse complexes. So even if you look both ways, you usually have 2-3 other people doing the same thing as you, and you all jump out there in the middle of it and its crazy….its just crazy. I’m not describing it very well. But lets just say I’ve had enough close calls out there that i don’t even consider them close calls any longer.

So tonight I was at the suicide run, trying to figure out how to integrate myself with traffic. And i see a slight opening (where i could jump out into the turn lane). And just as I’m getting settled into the turn lane. I look back, and i see a large gap (large is relative, it wasn’t that large, but the situation grants it being called large) and immediately jumped on the opportunity.

And I’m pretty close to the light i was turning left at, so I’m doing all this in one fluid motion, and the turn light is turning yellow. I made the calculation and figured I’d be out into the intersection while it was still yellow (i was, there was another truck next to me which i was ahead of just a bit).

Anyway, so someone behind me follows me through, which obviously puts me in the safe zone. However, this person was a cop, and he also had his lights on.

I pulled over into MCC and he gets out and gives a fatherly speech about wanting to live and yadda yadda. Seriously, it was a power-aid power-trip “i’m your daddy!” talk. Which was great, because i guess he felt that was sufficient and did not give me a ticket. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the cop was off duty and that he maybe was just pulling me over because he was pissed i got through the yellow light in front of him.

Did I mention he was arrogant?

Anyway, super exciting.

My favorite quote (that i made up) from the experience was from the perspective of the cop. “Do you have a dad, kid?” before i can answer “well you do now!”.

Yup, this morning I purchased my ticket for Muse in concert at the Mesa Amphitheatre, Mesa, AZ. Its going to be awesome.

The last time they came through I missed the announcement (radio’s way of punishing me for not being a listener). But I definately did not miss hearing everyone around me rave about how awesome they are in concert. Plus Muse is pretty much the best ever. So yeah. I was willing to break my nothing-over-$15 concert rule; I’m out $41.15. It’ll be worth it.

I purchased my ticket at about 10:08 a.m. this morning. It was a “special” 12 hour presale fronted by Ksomethingsomething 103.9 (a local radio station). Yeah, so thanks to 103.9 for that. Probably improved my chances of getting tickets.

I guess I really don’t have much else to say on the matter.

Statistically speaking, a call into the office belonging to your boss is a bad thing. This is a time that is given to that quaint firing. Those “oh well your not quite what we had in mind” or “oh that sexual harassment lawsuit Amber filed has forced our hand on this issue“.

In this case, I was informed of the amount of PTO I had accrued. Which time was adding up in such a way that it concerns them I would be unable to take the time off in such a way that it would not unjustly burden the team.

So yeah, it was like one of those good meetings.

Basically I am encouraged to consider my vacation taking skills, and to practice them. … And while this is all good news and such. I just don’t feel an overly compelling urge to go on vacation. Maybe its because I don’t have any money to vacation with. Or that I don’t particularly have a destination I hope to visit. Or anyone in particular I hope to visit.

Or this all could just be because I’ve not really thought of vacationing. And once I do, I’ll have a abundant supply of vacation idea’s I want to explore.

The 2008 presidential elections. I don’t know if you know, but I’m going to assume you don’t. The moons have aligned. Here is why…

There are three prominent (to me) figures running for president. A woman (Hillary Clinton). A black man (Barack Obama). And a Mormon (Mitt Romney).

Perhaps the last one is not significant to the vast majority of U.S.A. population. But lets assume it is.

These are three characters whom society has traditionally … not sure how to put it, but “snubbed” comes to mind, though it does not convey what I’m trying to say…we’ll keep it for now.

Society has never accepted a woman as a president, nor a black man, nor a Mormon. Society fears them. Why do they fear them? At its most basic level, its the fear of the unknown. The vast majority of people are not black, nor are they Mormon. I wanted to include female, but the woman’s involvement in this is significant due to the social role they have traditionally taken.

I don’t think any three of these should be elected based on there contribution to this odd election. As usual each candidate should be voted on based on their outlook on issues that are important the individual voting.

Unfortunately I’m sure this will not be the case.

The only thing that could make this election any more “rounded” is if there were a homosexual candidate.

Here are the latest stats on my marketing campaign. The following days were alot more successful than I expected. Its a weekend so the dropoff is expected. I am curious to see what the next Monday-Wednesday is like.

Anyway the traffic was sustained with a 117, followed by 116. not really a drop off at all (just between these two days).

I’ll let the picture do the talking. I included past days in this. The coloring at the bottom indicates a Sunday-Saturday period of time.

click the image for larger size.

Here you see a moment of boredom taken to paper in a flurry of statements. Its not poetry as its not eloquent. Its not alive as it would require more energy for that. I’m not even sure it connects throughout the process.

______________________________________________
Angel stardust is not as addicting as they say it is
She spoke of politics like it was her grandma
Experience is an expensive asset
Valuable items in life are sometimes underrated

I feed this feeling with chloroform
corpses are elusive
No matter how hard you try to keep them around
they always eventually vanish

Its a poor hobby anyway

It is said that baby sheep
Speak with telepathy
Until they are three months old
Which is when they naturally shift
Using the Baa dialect

I’m direct with my problems
I directly avoid them immediately
I feel I can outlive them
and I’ll be the winner
Because they wont be around

New experiences are grand
I enjoy them thoroughly
The more I get
The harder they are to find
I may have to get erratic soon
Perhaps the inventory will then unfold
Its scary to think new experiences
may one day never exist for me

People are friendly
People often times will be friendly
People need people
People need things
When people need things people are friendly

Fancy lifestyle does not have a shortage of customers
It just has a hard time convincing some people
It is worth the effort

Sometimes effort is lost
The problem with this is that effort is not able to be refound
Effort is a cheap friend like that
It will visit you once
But never twice
Its always a new stranger
Which makes the experience familiar

This is an update to the post made earlier today, as well as yesterdays post. All in all everything was a success. I may post another stats update in a few days. If its interesting enough. It may just die down to nothing, we will have to see.

Here is a screen-shot of the www.ponderplace.com stats as of June 13th, 2007 @ 6:54pm.

click the image for larger size.

Congratulations to ponderplace.com. According to this admittedly poor statistics tracking plugin I’ve been using. We topped out at 190 visitors.

I’m very glad of this and feel the SMS campaign was a success. My enthusiasm is dampened however. I feel this statistic tracking program is not very accurate. As such, I installed Google Analytics. Which provides a much more effective report and many more details. I’m not sure how long it takes to kick in. But I’m looking forward to what it reveals. Even if it pulls down the mask and reveals I only have 10 visitors on these high traffic days.

This is a followup to yesterdays post.

On June 12th, 2007 @ 6:50pm I completed my marketing campaign via SMS messages. This is the first of my marketing for www.ponderplace.com. I’ll not delve into much detail. But thus far you could say its been successful.

Here is the screen cap, taken just moments ago on June 13th, 2007 @ 8:51am

click the image for larger size.

As you can see, there are 162 hits. I’m impressed, the results from my SMS campaign are tangible. I managed to best my previous record of 120 visitors on May 25th 2007.

I’m still not trusting of these stats though. When I look at the most read article, it is the OCD dog one. Which is great, if thats an awesome article. Than what is the issue?

Well, its just that there are so many hits on that one article … and its not even viewable from the main page. Plus there have been no comments on it. If it were a star writing, it would be generating comments.

Oh well, I’ll just be naive and believe these stats for now. Its nice to think I have lots of visitors.

And an unexpected side effect of all this. The stats for www.killersixtysix.com jumped to 38. Thats about 36-37 more than I expected. This (I believe) adds further proof to my theory that these numbers are not nearly what they want you to think they are.